pinochle

The One Big Happy from 12/9, in which Ruthie is rotfl over the name of a card game:

Exactly my response when, at the age of 7 or 8, I first heard the name of this card game. I mean, pea-knuckle!

Then my parents told me how the name was spelled, and I was just baffled. PINOCHLE (suggesting, maybe, PINOCCHIO)?

Of course, they had no idea where the name came from — why should they? — and if they had known, I almost surely wouldn’t have believed them. (My dad was not above inventing preposterous etymologies.)

The etymological truth, insofar as it’s known — from OED3 (June 2006):

Etymology: < German Binokel, the name of a card game < French binocle, lit. ‘two-eyed’ (see binocle n.). The game is perhaps so called after the high-scoring combination of Jack and Queen, both cards traditionally showing a face in profile, or after the fact that it is played with two decks of cards. [1st cite 1864]